International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention (IJHSSI) ISSN (Online): 2319 – 7722, ISSN (Print): 2319 – 7714 www.ijhssi.org ||Volume 8 Issue 06 Ser. I || June 2019 || PP 40-43 Socio-Political Realities of Assam Reflected in Uddipana Goswami’s Short Stories Lekhika Gogoi 1 Research Scholar (JRF), Department of Assamese, Dibrugarh University, Assam ABSTRACT: Socio-political issues always influence literary works directly or indirectly. Literature from a particular region may therefore act as mirror to a specific society by presenting the vivid picture of everyday life, beliefs and ideologies of the people. The short stories of Uddipana Goswami, a well known journalist and writer from Assam also depict the same. The present paper tries to examine how her short stories deal with the issues of social discrimination, communal riots, insurgencies and problems of immigration in the midst of serene ecology of Assam. In some of her stories Goswami shows the gradual increase of social disintegrations among people from different backgrounds. She hints out the issues of economic disparities that prevail in Assamese society as well. The stories basically focus on the downtrodden communities residing in tea estate areas as wage labourers. KEYWORDS: Northeast Writing, Uddipana Goswami, Assam, Discrimination, Violence, Society, Politics. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 27-05-2019 Date of acceptance:10-06-2019 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION Uddipana Goswami is a renowned journalist and writer from Assam, a state from northeast India. She is editor of Northeast Review, an online journal of arts and literature. Her published works include: Conflict and Reconciliation: The Politics of Ethnicity in Assam, two anthologies of poetry We Called the River Red: Poetry from a Violent Homeland (2010) and Green Tin Trunk, one short story collection No Ghosts in the City and Other Stories (2014) and an edited volume Indira Goswami: Passion and the Pain (2012). Her works depict some true pictures of Assam and entire northeast from the perspectives of culture, ecology, society as an institution, politics and ethnicity. The present study is focused on some such issues that are presented in her short stories selected from the collection No Ghosts in the City and Other Stories (2014). There are twelve short stories in the collection which talk about everyday life and political realities of Assam. In the stories the author does not focus only on dark sides of society, rather she gives the readers some hints as to how the darkness can be overthrown. She believes that all the social problems are deeply rooted to the ideologies that we possess. She in her afterword of No Ghosts in the City and Other Stories remarks: My stories are a lot about darkness but they are also about the small sparks of light that occasionally dispel the demons in our souls. The brief luminosities of love, life, relations, rememberances, penitence and possibilities are, after all, the things that make life worth living. (119) To discuss the above mentioned issues the researcher has chosen the short stories like Virginia Mahi, Andolan and The Hills of Haflong from the collection of the stories. All the three stories possess abundance of evidences related to social realities, political scenario, racial and communal discrimination as well as beautiful and diverse ecological pattern of Assam. II. METHODOLOGY The study is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data includes chosen works of the author. The secondary data includes critical references, journals and internet sources. All the collected sources will be used to analyse the proposed objective of the study. III. DISCUSSION It is almost impossible for authors of any literary text to escape from the contemporary social realities. Most literary historians and critics have taken some account of the relation of individual authors to the circumstances of to the social and cultural era in which they live and write, as well as of the relation of a literary work to the segment of society that its fiction represents or to the audience toward which the work is addressed. M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham in their book A Glossary of Literary Terms write: www.ijhssi.org 40 | Page Socio-Political Realities Of Assam Reflected In Uddipana Goswami’s Short Stories Sociological critics treat a work of literature as inescapably conditioned-in the choice and development of the subject matter, the ways of thinking it incorporates, its evaluations of the modes of life it renders, and even in its formal qualities- by the social, political, and economic organization and forces of its age. (368-369) Uddipana Goswami‟s short stories are also of no exception. Picture of society in a vivid way is evident in her stories. The everyday life of rustic Assamese society is shown in the short story Virginia Mahi. She depicts the way of life of the baganiyas (tea-tribes). The narrative presents their occupation and belief systems among them. It shows the traditional midwifery system in their society. Such midwives are known as dhaimaa in Assamese. Rojina is such an expert midwife who can sort out complicated pregnancies in their society. She has helped many women in bringing babies into the world with her extraordinary skill. In the story it is revealed that this expertise has come from experiences over the years. The following narration from the collection of stories No Ghosts in the City and Other Stories shows her expertise in the field as well as a glimpse of social orientation: The midwife was a tea-tribal woman who lived in the labour lines and picked tea leaves like all other labour women. Her name was Rojina. Midwifery was Rojina‟s “side business” and they said there was no one who knew more about bringing babies into the world than she did. Even Bijoy Roy Compounder, who was the only medic in the tea estate, had had to take her help in many complicated pregnancies. (48) The position of tea-tribal women in the society is also noticed here. They help the family economically by picking tea leaves. Woman like Rojina has to work hard for living by running the side business of midwifery in addition to picking leaves. This side business may be a compulsion for her. Another woman character and protagonist Virginia mahi herself shows responsibilities of a woman toward both family and society. She started taking care of father and two brothers after demise of her mother. She even forgets to take care of herself. Here the level of dedication and sacrifice of a woman toward her family is presented vividly through Virginia Mahi‟s character. The narrative shows, “Virginia mahi looked after her brothers, and when Baganor koka came home on his monthly visits, she looked after him as well. Only, in the process, she forgot to look after herself.” (49) Another issue that has been raised in the story is the rate of death of women during child birth and related causes. Lack of awareness among common mass and proper medication is a big issue. Women die due to frequent pregnancies, improper diet, improper ways of child birth etc. Most of the women were dependent on midwifery system for giving birth. Virginia mahi‟s mother too died for the same reason. She continued to be weak and fell ill after giving birth to the twins and could never recover. Different socio-political circumstances led the youths of Assam to join a revolutionary xangathan (organization). In the story the name of the organization is not mentioned. The only hint the story gives us is that the organization breaks some sort of constitutional rules and the members are considered to be anti-national or terrorist. Virginia mahi‟s brother Bortee mama joins the revolutionary group and eventually got killed by Indian army. These things hint out some sort of political unrest in Assam. Traces of these insurgencies and turmoil have been found in other stories of Goswami as well. In the story Viginia Mahi Goswami writes, “After we had left Kopati, Bortee mama had joined the xangathan. He had given up his studies and became a revolutionary. And last week, he had been picked up by the army. They had beaten him to death.” (51) A hint of a pathetic situation is given in the narration of the story. In another story The Hills of Haflong readers may get similar scenario. The narrator joins a college of Haflong in Assam as lecturer. It seems to be one of the most serene and calm places of Assam with rich flora and fauna. The whole town is surrounded by green and beautiful hills. But in the midst of such serenity and calmness the narrator witnesses violence, bloodshed and terror. Insurgency is in peak point at this place. Goswami writes: Haflong, was, after all at the center of Dimaraji Movement, where violent armed insurgent groups were waging a war against the state and against each other. People got killed here every day and so, I had had a tough time convincing my parents to let me come here. (112) Dimaraji Movement is led by the Dimasa people of Northeast India demanding a separate state for them. It would comprise the Dimasa inhabited areas, named Dima Hasao district, parts of Cachar district, parts of Nagaon district, Hojai district and Karbi Anglong district in Assam together with part of Dimapur district in Nagaland. The name of the proposed state is Dimaraji or Dimaland. The havoc created by this movement is tremendous. Social lives have also been affected a lot by the insurgency. Unpredictable firing and bomb blast created terror in the minds of common people. Bombing becomes a common phenomenon in the locality. The narrator of the story gets surprised by seeing the everyday life of Haflong.